MORPHOLOGIC AND FUNCTIONAL-PROPERTIES OF BRONCHIAL CELLS ISOLATED FROM NORMAL AND ASTHMATIC SUBJECTS

Recent advances in biomedical sciences have led to the development of various methods for the evaluation of the physiopathology of respirato ry diseases. This study reports morphologic and functional features of cells isolated by a new method from bronchial biopsies of normal and asthmatic subjects. Both epithelial and fibroblastic cells were isolat ed from the same biopsies using collagenase. The cells were cultured f or several passages and stored frozen. Two selective culture media wer e used in order to obtain pure epithelial and fibroblastic cell popula tions. Immunofluorescence analysis of intermediate filaments, keratins , and vimentin confirmed the type of the isolated cells. The proportio ns of cr-actin-expressing:cells varied among the fibroblastic cell pop ulations isolated from normal and asthmatic subjects. Interestingly, t he population containing high numbers of alpha-actin-expressing cells and presenting the fastest collagen contraction kinetic was isolated f rom bronchial biopsies of an asthmatic subject. Moreover, the fibrobla stic cells that showed the best contractile properties 24 h after thei r seeding in floating collagen gels were isolated from bronchial biops ies of asthmatic patients having PC20 values below 1 mg/ml. On the bas is of these data, we propose a new approach to isolate, culture and ch aracterize human bronchial cells tn vitro.